Mom arrested after refusing TSA search of daughter

Authorities at Nashville International Airport say a 41-year-old Clarksville woman was arrested after becoming belligerent and refusing to allow Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents to search her daughter.

A police report obtained by The Tennessean states that Andrea Fornella Abbott did not want to have her daughter “touched inappropriately or have her crotch grabbed.”

Police claimed that Abbott was taken to jail because she refused to calm down, yelling and swearing at officials.

She “told me in a very stern voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” airport security officer Sabrina Birge told police.

“No, it’s not an X-ray,” Birge reportedly explained to Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”

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David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.